phone call. he knows very well that the president was trying to extort ukrainians to interfere in our elections, which is illegal and immoral. ambassador, thank you very much for being here. if anyone hasn t read your explanation just a few days ago about why you resigned your post, they should. thank you again for your time. poppy, that was actually last year. that was last year. yes, i know. december 2018. over the summer. thank you very much for being with us. i appreciate it. talk to you soon, ambassador. you re welcome. it s moving quickly this morning. we have more breaking news into cnn. president trump has just lost his appeal to stop a house subpoena of his tax returns. cnn s jessica schneider has those breaking details. what are we learning and is there another appeal? there probably is, jim.
direct question. is it appropriate president donald trump or any president, democrat or republican could ask a foreign government to investigate his political opponent? it s fairly straightforward. watch cory gardener of colorado avoid the question. but the question is is it appropriate for a president look, we are going to have an investigation. it s a nonpartisan investigation. it s an answer that you get. is it okay but you re not answering the we want to hear from you. this is the politics of the moment and that s why they re trying to do this now. joining us now is congressman michael walt, an army veteran, decorated green beret who s been very vocal. we appreciate you taking the time this morning. thanks, jim. let s begin with syria because you ve been very vocal and you were someone who served
allies in syria, do you view that as abandoning america s ally in ukraine for political purposes? this administration, jim, unlike the obama administration has sole lethal aid to the ukrainians. they withheld it. be fair in your reporting the president has had questions about aid around the world? northern triangle countries, afghanistan, he has repeatedly asked political officials around the world on is this being used effectively, is it in u.s. interest and is corruption involved in abusing this aid? he s been clear on that since day one you accept that explanation? yeah, i do accept that explanation. and political appointees are in charge of aid and i don t see why that s an issue you re asking about.
iraq too soon. that s what led to al-qaeda resurging and pulling out of isis in the first place. let me ask you a question. you ve seen the president s phone call with the ukrainian president and the president on the white house lawn saying, hey, china, investigate joe biden. in the simpilous terms should the u.s. president of any party ask or seek the help of a foreign country in a u.s. election? look, i am not comfortable if there is a clear-cut quid pro quo, then, yeah that makes me very uncomfortable and we should take a hard look at that. but, jim, that s not how i read this transcript and i think a lot of people are projecting, you know, what happened there. i think you would also call i think you d also call a clear-cut vote. if it s so clear-cut and people believe that s what happened then i believe you would also call on my democratic colleagues to take a vote up or down.
plainly in its 2 to 1 decision basically saying contrary to the president s arguments the oversight committee here possesses authority under both the house rules and constitution to issue a subpoena and they must comply. and that s important here because the supreme court has repeatedly upheld congress has the right to issue these sorts of subpoenas in firthernance of its legislative and investigative purposes. so if this does in fact get up to the supreme court it s possible given the precedent here that the supreme court would have to say this is broad legislative function of congress and they re entitled to these documents. but, again, jim and poppy, we ve seen the fight over the president s tax returns and financial records playing out on many different fronts here. and still we haven t actually seen those yet. so this will likely continue to play out. so despite this ruling saying that the president and his team have to hand this over, probably still won t see it anytime soon beca